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Thread: Glenn and Sharon “Monkee” Around WDW, May 17, 2012 – May 20, 2012, Boardwalk Villas

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    Glenn and Sharon “Monkee” Around WDW, May 17, 2012 – May 20, 2012, Boardwalk Villas

    Travel dates: May 17, 2012 May 20, 2012
    Travel method: Airplane and Rental Car
    Resort: Boardwalk Villas
    Accommodations: One Bedroom Villa
    Ages Represented in Group: 40s
    Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: Disneyland APs, 12+ Trips to WDW
    Comments: This was a quick Adult trip for us.

    Cast of characters: Sharon, Trip Report Writer (40) and Glenn, DH (46)


    Planning

    My husband is a life long Monkees fan. Last year we were lucky enough to be able to see Davy Jones at Epcot as part of the Flower Power Concert Series. We were in Florida to do a cruise on the Dream, but our timing worked out for us to be able to do this as well. This show was really a lot of fun. It was just a great family moment, the three of us enjoying a Davy Jones show. I saw that this year he was going to be playing on the first weekend of the Star Wars weekend. I joked to my husband, We should go see Davy and do Star Wars weekend this year. It was joking because we had no plans to be there this year and all vacation time is spoken for. We shelved it and didnt think anything of it until the sad news on February 29th that Davy had passed away. My husband was mourning the man and his music. I was mourning the fact that our family would never have a chance to do a fun family show like that again.

    Before anything was decided I asked my husband if he wanted to go if Micky Dolenz (the other Monkee that actively tours) was the replacement. He said maybe but we werent actually planning on anything. The rumor he had heard on various Monkees sites was the David Cassidy might be the replacement. When the news was announced that Micky was the replacement, we knew we had to be there. We opted to do a quick trip and leave Nathan at home with Grandma and Grandpa. (Dont cry too hard for him, he did a 7 night cruise in April and has the DCL Panama Canal cruise next year. I have a sneaking suspicion well be back in November for MA too). We decided that flying out on Thursday morning and coming home on Sunday would probably be the best timing in terms of days and not too many nights away from Nathan. Glenns mom lives in Orlando and we figured the day flight (as opposed to the redeye) would give us an extra chance to have dinner with her, but alas, she is out of town that weekend.

    We knew we would want to be in the Epcot resort area if at all possible since the concerts and Star Wars weekend would be our main focus. We are DVC members, but figured the odds of something available there would be long, so we also looked at Swan and Dolphin, but they were very booked and did not have great rates for that weekend. We were surprised at how much selection was still available with DVC though given that we were only booking 2 months out. The selection was limited, but there were still some options available. We thought SSR would be our only choice. We wanted a studio, but were able to book a garden view one bedroom at Boardwalk! We were very happy with that. More room (in terms of space and amenities) than we needed on a trip like this, but the location is exactly where we wanted to be and because of timing, we felt like we had a couple extra points in the DVC bank, so a 1 bedroom it is!

    I looked up the airline fares and all were fair but not good. We opted to use miles for one ticket and pay for the other. I was thisclose to being able to upgrade us to first class one way (something that weve never done), but the ticket situation didnt allow it.

    We debated whether to get a car or not. Magical Express is available and without our son (and his wheelchair), wed be a little more flexible with getting around. (Because of the WC, we typically rent a van.). (Just a note, all WDW busses are WC accessible, we just find that wed rather drive than have to do multiple transfers with the WC, which can take a long time and be tiring.) As our plans developed, we determined that a car would probably be a good thing to have since we ended up planning stuff in the MK area. I figured that as a portion of the travel budget, a car wouldnt be that expensive since we didnt need a van, just something with 4 wheels. Turns out that wasnt the case. Cars were fairly expensive. I was trying various codes to see what I could come up with and on their site (no code required) Budget had a weekend rental of a mid size SUV for $22 per day! That meets the requirements. So the car was booked. A couple of days before we left, I started getting emails from all the travel sites with updated and better rental car rates. We debated a couple different options, but ended up switching to Avis for basically the same rate for a full sized car. We preferred a car to an SUV and I have the card to get preferred service with Avis, so no having to wait in line.

    We used to be big fans of the Disney Dining Plan, we used to love prepaying our meals and thought it was a great value. As the price increased and things starting falling off the plan, we were less in love with it, but have used it here and there. We knew we wanted to eat at a lot of sit down restaurants, so the DDP seemed to be making sense. When Glenn was booking the room with DVC, he discussed the DDP with the agent and decided to book the deluxe dining plan. That includes three sitdowns and two snacks per day. That seems like a lot of food, so we booked two restaurants that require two credits. We built our schedule around doing a bunch of sitdowns. We will be eating three meals a day. We are doing somewhat early breakfasts, somewhat late lunches and late dinners. We hope that works. We enjoy a full meal, so we think well get a good value out of it, but it remains to be seen if we can eat that much food.

    The last thing to figure out was admission media. We live in Los Angeles and are Disneyland Annual Pass holders. And our renewal is in April, so this decision would dovetail around that as well. Simple math told us that a Premier Pass would be the best for Glenn since he always gets a DL Premium annual passport and the cost to upgrade to the Premier was less than a three day ticket. It was less clear for me since I typically get a DL Deluxe passport. Really the decision hinges on whether we think we will make it back in November or not. If so, then the Premier pass makes the most sense, if not a three day non hopper is the cheapest.

    Just as we were in the meat of our planning we happened to see one of those Hidden Disney specials. On this particular one they talked about the various tours that were available. We always knew about them, but for whatever reason, Glenn was really struck with doing the Keys to the Kingdom tour. Ive always wanted to do the Behind the Seeds tour at Epcot, so we decided to do those on our trip as well.

    The basic schedule is:

    Thursday May 17th, fly from LAX to Orlando, pick up rental car, check into BWV and have dinner at Flying Fish Caf.

    Friday, May 18th, walk to Epcot, have breakfast at Seasons, do the Behind the Seeds tour, tour Future World until our 1PM ressie at Rose and Crown. After lunch, tour WS in conjunction with waiting in line for and watching the Micky Dolenz shows. We are hoping to do at least two of them. It is EMH at Epcot that night, we are going to see Illuminations and then do a late dinner at Les Chefs de France. We are hoping the special cheese chef is working that evening.

    Saturday, May 19th, We have breakfast at Kouzinna. Then we are headed to DHS for Star Wars weekends. We are not exactly sure what that entails. We know the park will be busy. We are both SW fans, but not enough to wait an hour for an autograph from the guy who does a voice on Clone Wars. I definitely want to hit the merchandise tent and see the parade, but beyond that we may just do general park touring. We have a 1:30 reservation at the 50s Prime Time Caf. We sort of wanted Sci-Fi Drive In, but the times available werent great. We are very happy with Plan B though. Well wrap up and head to the room to get cleaned up and head to the 8 PM Polynesian Spirit of Aloha show. MK is not open late that night or we might try to sneak over for a little bit. Well probably head back and start packing up.

    Sunday, May 20th, We have a the Keys to the Kingdom tour first thing, so we will need to be up and out early. Well drive to MK, do the tour and spend any remaining time at MK. Hopefully seeing the new Circus area. Well probably stay until 3 ish and then head out to the car and then head to the airport.

    This trip will include some firsts for us. Well be staying at Boardwalk for the first time. Well be doing the two tours for the first time. I did the train tour with my Dad a few years ago; Glenn has never been on any of the tours. Well be eating for the first time at Flying Fish, Rose and Crown, Kouzinna and the Spirit of Aloha. All of these things were things we wanted to try, but just never got to for whatever reason.

    It is going to be a whirlwind trip, but we really cant wait!


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    The Actual:

    Thursday, May 17th. We were up and out early to battle the LA traffic to the airport. We got to the parking in plenty of time, dropped our car off and took the shuttle to the airport. We checked out bags at the curb and headed in. Security was not bad at all and we were on our way. On our way to the gate, we stopped at McDonalds and grabbed coffee and a biscuit. The flight took off more of less on time and we were on our way. We spent the trip out reading and playing the onboard trivia game. Before we knew it, we were landing in Orlando. We grabbed our bags and headed out to the Avis kiosk. We were able to go directly to our car, a Mazda 6. The car didn’t seem like a full size from the outside, but it was plenty roomy on the inside.

    We usually stop for supplies breakfast, travel and otherwise on our way to WDW, but this was such a quick trip that we didn’t need anything and headed straight to the Boardwalk. We pulled around to the front, unloaded our stuff and checked in. I went to park the car, not nearly as easy as it sounds and started the epic like quest to get to our room. I took a quaint little path that took me to the DVC units, but that was one offshoot of the main offshoot, so I had to walk down two offshoots to get to the elevator (we were on the fifth floor) and then had to walk all the way down two long halls as we were all the way at the end of the section. The good news on our location is that we were right by stairs, the bad news was the closest thing to them was the path the DHS and our plans didn’t have us going that way. The room itself was very nice once I finally got there. It was described as a “garden view”, realistically it was a pool view, which doesn’t make a difference. We got settled in and headed out to explore and talk to the concierge about upgrading my DL annual pass to a Premier (little did I know I was beating the cost increase by the skin of my teeth). We were told that we had to go to guest relations at the International Gateway if we wanted to do something like that. We opted not to as I was wearing strolling shoes and not walking shoes. We had a 9pm reservation at Flying Fish, but checked in early and they were able to seat us almost immediately. We loved the dcor and the way it was set up. I opted for the tasting menu and Glenn had the Epcot surprise salad and the tuna. Our appetizers and entrees were delicious. The banana napoleon came with my menu and Glenn opted for the PB&J crme brulee. My dessert was very good, but Glenn though his was out of this world! He couldn’t stop raving about it. We had such a great meal there, we thought it was an excellent use of two dining credits. We headed back to the room and got our suits on and went down to the Luna Park Pool. We wanted to use the hot tub. It was a little crowded when we got there, but we farted around in the pool until some space opened up and then we sat in the hot tub a while. You always meet the nicest people at WDW. We shared the hot tub with a nice family from St. Louis. I think the lady my have been a member of the St. Louis Tourism Commission though (joking about that), since she spent the whole time selling us on the wonders and fabulous attractions of St. Louis. Apparently there is an excellent Horseradish Festival there. She was super nice and it was a great interaction, I have just never gotten that hard a sell for a hometown in my life.

    We wrapped up at the pool and headed back to the room. Glenn watched the last little bit of the LA Kings game (they won!) and Go, Kings. We were still on West Coast time, but still drifted off by midnight. We wanted to get an early start since we needed to take care of my pass before getting into the park and we wanted to be there early.

    Friday, May 18th. Our big plans for today were the Behind the Seeds tour at 11:15 and seeing the Micky Dolenz shows. We had a 1pm reservation at Rose and Crown for lunch and a 9:30 ADR for Les Chefs de France.

    We were up and out super efficiently. The time change wasn’t too tough on us this time. We walked to the International Gateway and ended up getting there a little after 8:30. The Guest Relations booth was open, but that cast member told me that my upgrade could only be done at the front gate guest relations. Grrr. Had we known that last night we probably would have taken a leisurely cruise to DHS and taken care of it the night before. He sold us a one day one park ticket for $90.63! (Yowza!) that could be applied against the cost of my upgrade. I asked if I could just buy a three day and we could deal with upgrading later, but he said that could get problematic. Believe it or not, with 13 hours scheduled for Epcot, we still felt like we didn’t have a lot of time to spare today. We though possibly (like a small percentage chance) they might let us in to go the front of the park, to take care of things. They were set up to allow people entrance for breakfast reservations, tour reservations etc. We went to ask the security guy and before we could even get the question all the way out, some guest who was standing at bag check to be first in line I think, said in the nastiest, most arrogant tone of voice, “Of course that can’t be done. The people you see going in have breakfast reservations. If you want to do that, you’ll have to go back to the hotel and take a cab to the front”. Like who asked you, Dude? We didn’t think it was likely, but given that we had been given the Disney runaround a bit, it seemed like something that might be doable. At that point we just waited to be let into the park. They let us in around 8:45 and we walked straight to get Soarin Fastpasses. The wait was 20 minutes and we got a 9:45 Fastpass. We decided to just ride since we figured we could turn around a ride and breakfast at Seasons in the 45 minutes it would take to wait for the FP to open up. We waited about 20 minutes and then went flying over our home! We had breakfast at Seasons right after. We opted for breakfast panninis. We each got an orange juice and a coffee since I understood you got two drinks at breakfast since you weren’t getting a dessert (or since we were on the Deluxe Dining Plan no appetizer either), when we went to check out, they insisted it was one drink for breakfast and they charged us for snacks. Given what happened the next day, I think we may have been cheated out of two snack credits. But anyway we enjoyed our breakfast. The sandwich was super tasty, but the potatoes that came with were cold and not very good. Although this is where that Disney service kicks in. One of the custodial folks came by to grab our tray. We chatted a bit about where we were from, he asked how we like our breakfast and I mentioned the potatoes were cold. He offered to go back and get us some new hot ones if we liked. We were wrapping up at that point, but we thought that was super nice of him. Was this the best use of a DeluxeDP credit? No, but this is what made sense in our schedule.

    Living with the Land had a manageable wait so we went and did that in anticipation of our upcoming tour. Given our timing for the day, this was our chance to go take care of my pass upgrade. We made our way to the front of the park and out the exit to get to Guest Relations, Glenn noticed how long the lines were to get back in, fortunately we didn’t have to go through bag check again. We got to the front of the line and explained what we needed. This poor castmember understood what we needed, but had to ask two or three other people to confirm things etc. We really threw her for a loop. We knew that they don’t see a lot of Premier passes, but when we did our initial transaction to renew and upgrade Glenn to a Premiere at Dland back in March, that castmember lady could not have been more efficient. The WDW cast member even sort of balked at giving us a credit for the ticket I had purchased for admittance. We ended up paying the full price for an upgrade and having a second transaction refunding my ticket. We had some Disney Rewards $$ that Glenn wanted to apply towards it, but we decided we would apply it at the hotel for fear we’d be there still. (Just as an aside, I have to say the Guest Relations line was a depressing place to start a WDW trip, everyone else in line seemed to be having issues with tickets, fraudulent and otherwise. A lot of people were off to a slow start to their day. And I say that mostly because I felt bad for most of those folks).

    Once that was taken care of we needed to head straight back to the Land for our tour. We made a quick stop in the Art of Animation store. I bought the newest Figment release and we walked through Innoventions. We got to the tour desk in plenty of time and got our name tags. Our tour guide was Tim, a summer inter with a degree in horticulture. He was super enthusiastic and his enthusiasm for the subject really made the tour. We thought the tour started off a little slow since it focused on “what you had in your garden”. We were like “nothing, we have a townhouse with a concrete patio. Does a BBQ grill count?” When it moved on to the general pavilion and what they had going on there it was fascinating. The tour was supposed to last an hour but lasted more like an hour and 30 minutes. By the time we got done we needed to pretty much head over to our 1 pm reservation at R&C. We hit the Figment ride on our way past and didn’t have nearly enough time in the store (like we glanced at stuff as we were walking briskly through). We made it to our reservation on time and we waited five minutes or so to actually get seated. We had a nice table inside where it was air conditioned! In our real lives, we judge a restaurant by two criteria, how is the food and can we get Nathan’s wheelchair in there and not in that order. At WDW, we’ve never really had an issue getting him in anywhere for the most part. While we loved the theming of Rose and Crown, we thought it might be a tough fit for Nathan. We had a great meal though, we really liked all the food. I had the apple and frisee salad and the cottage pie and Glenn had the scallops appetizer and fish and chips. He has the sticky toffee pudding and I had the “mess” for dessert. I wish I had gotten a side order of the chips they were super yummy. I thought the portions were on the smaller side. Since this was our first time there, I wasn’t sure if these were lunch sized portions or if the portions just run smaller there. It was plenty of lunch for sure, but just a planning comment. Funny chips story, we were seated next to a family with a little girl, aged 2-3 would be my guess and they ordered a side of chips for her for lunch. I was thinking “Oh, she’ll never eat all those”. Lo and behold if she didn’t finish them off for the most part. The parents were feeding her from their plates too. Even her Mom commented that she couldn’t believe “Susy” had eaten all those fries. “Susy” replied “Mommy, those fries tasted goooood!” I guess that says it all. One Deluxe DP down and we were on our way.

    We next headed to shops at Canada to buy Glenn’s favorite maple cookies. We then went downstairs and toured Canada with Marty. That is always a “must do” attraction for us. Thunderstorms had been threatened and apparently while we were in Canada, some lightning had been spotted so when we got out a lot had been shut down and the Friendship boats weren’t running. We were going to take them across the lagoon on our way to the line for the first Micky show. We opted instead to hit the stores at the front of the lagoon and picked up a couple of gifts and Cars themed Monorails which are blind packaged and are a Vinylamtion offshoot. Glenn had the magic touch though, he pulled two and managed to come up with Lightning and Mater. By the time we got to the second dock, the boats were running and one was waiting, so we took it across to Germany. We walked towards America and already the line was in Italy. They rearranged the line a bit, but we were already pretty far back. We waited in line for the show, but they let us in pretty early. We were able to snag a seat next to a tree, so we at least had a little bit of shade. The show was great. Micky seemed to be having a great time and there was a small tribute to Davy that brought a few tears.

    After the show, the line was already long for the second show. I got in the back of the line for the second show and stopped at what was the back of the line for the third show. I ended up 15-20 people back. Hubby thought about watching from the back of the theater while I waited in line. (or watching the show until they handed out the line card things). But I was close enough, we could sort of see and certainly could hear the show from where we were waiting. I went and used two snack credits on a pretzel and Diet Coke while we waited. We met some really nice people in line. One was a photographer in the Magic Kingdom. We told her we would look for her when we went to MK on Sunday. We headed right in when they let us and we sat in the front row! Glenn was super excited.

    After the show, we hit France to do some shopping in the fragrance store. We both smelled great by the time we walked out! We found a decent spot to watch Illuminations. Not a great spot, but it got the job done. We didn’t want to get too far afield since we had dinner ressies at Les Chefs. When the show was done we went to see if we could check in early, we could and they sat us in about 5 minutes. I inquired about the special cheese chef, but was told he only does lunch and dinner until 6. Thought that was a handy bit of information. Glenn was debating the chicken or the duck. Our server convinced him the duck was the more adventurous choice. She was right and it was delicious. He had the lobster bisque and I had the cheese plate and steak. By the time dessert came, we were pretty full, but we order the strawberry cream cake. The strawberry sorbet that came with it was delicious. The cake was good, but I would have been happy with a couple scoops of that sorbet. Once dinner was completed, we walked back to the hotel. We hit the shops at the International Gateway on our way out and picked up a couple of things. We made it back to the room and sacked out for the night. Another early morning.

    Saturday, May 19th

    Today’s plans are to go to Hollywood Studios for Star Wars weekend and then up to the Polynesian for the Spirit of Aloha show.

    We were up and at em right on schedule. We had an 8 am breakfast reservation at Kouzzina. We tried to have dinner once at Kouzzina and had a terrible experience. We waited over an hour after our ADR and never got seated. We ended up leaving. It’s a running joke in our family that Cat Cora (the celebrity chef proprietor) is mean. We thought we’d give it another go for breakfast, but if they even held off seating us for 2 minutes, we were leaving. As soon as we walked in they took us immediately to a table. In a fairly open dining room they put us right next to another occupied table though, we could have sampled each other’s meals we were so close. We did end up chatting with them a bit which was nice. I was still pretty full from the night before, so I just had the American breakfast and Glenn has the spinach feta scramble. Here is where it got interesting with the drinks. The server here told us we got two drinks, Glenn got non Nescafe coffee and orange juice. The restaurant had some specialty drinks that could be had for two drink credits. I had the frappe specialty drink and it was very good. A cold sweet milky coffee drink. I liked it enough to ask if they offered it all day and would they do it as a “to-go” order and they said that they would to both questions. So I guess we did get taken from two snack credits yesterday.

    We didn’t want to wait for the long version of the Friendship boat ride, so we walked over to the Swan/Dolphin dock. While we were waiting the USA men’s soccer team seemed to be out training. I am not sure what brought them there, but it wasn’t a bad way to start the day from a visual perspective if nothing else. We rode the boat over and got into DHS with no issues. The Stormtroopers were on top of the entry gates checking us all out. I grabbed a brochure for the Star Wars weekend and we headed out. Our first stop was Star Tours. We got a Fastpass and went through the standby line that had a 10 minute wait. We hadn’t done this yet at this park. As I mentioned earlier, we are DL AP’s, and we have ridden it at DL, but because we’ve been doing “baby” switch, we’ve never actually ridden it together. We basically walked up to the loading area. Once we got off the ride, it was time for our Fastpass, so we went on again. The line had creeped up to 30 minutes and it looked like that was about right. We debated whether to stand in line for any of the photo ops for Star Wars weekends. I sort of wanted to get a couple of pictures, Glenn had no interest in waiting in any lines to get one as it was getting warm and there wasn’t a lot of shade in the lines.

    We headed over to the Animation building as we wanted to check out the store. Our timing was just right, so we saw the Mushu film, which is always a lot of fun. We also timed it right and were able to do a drawing class. We drew Bolt. Glenn’s looked pretty good; mine wasn’t going to win any awards. We hit the store there and found a couple of things that we wanted. A couple of years ago, we saw a lithograph at that store that was Stitch as Yoda. It was one of the framed nice prints. We were there in August, so we figured it was left over from that year’s Star Wars weekend. We almost bought it, like really really almost bought it we liked it so much. We didn’t though because I always end up buying Figment stuff at the Epcot Art of Animation store, so we didn’t want to blow the budget. Of course when we got to Epcot that trip, I didn’t find anything we liked. That Stitch as Yoda litho is our Disney collectible that got away. This time we were able to get a figurine that was Stitch as Yoda which we liked. They had signed ones because of the weekend. Interestingly, the clerk who was helping us looked all over and finally told us they were out. While we were waiting, we noticed they had huge piles of the special SW merchandise right behind the counter. I asked if there might be one in that pile. The response? “Oh, that’s where they were!”. With Stitch purchased and winging his way to our home, we figured it was time to hit the Darth Mall. (Such a cool name). We had seen Star Wars stuff throughout the park, but we figured we’d be able to get it all there. And boy could we! It was huge. There was so much fun stuff. We ended up spending a while in there. It was air conditioned with lots of fun stuff to look at. We ended up getting a couple things for my son (Nathan always gets all the best stuff), a t shirt for me and an iPhone cover for Glenn. He’s had several people ask him where he got that cover.

    It was time for the parade which I really wanted to see. We weren’t especially early, so we didn’t think we’d get a great place to stand. We ended up in front of the store that has that raised merchandise/porch area out front. We were up a bit and occasionally we’d get a whiff of AC, so not too bad a place to stand. This is when we had one of those only at Disney experiences (in a bad way). After we had been there 5 minutes or so, this family comes up and politely asks if their son can stand next to us. We were wedged in between a couple racks of merchandise. This kid crawls up behind a display and is quiet and funny and blocks none of our view. We were having fun chatting with this kid and his parents. About two minutes before the parade is about to start another Dad and his son push their way their way through the merchandise and the Dad puts his kid up on the ledge which because of where we were and the direction the parade was coming from really blocked about 70% of our view. Glenn spoke up and pointed this out to him and he said “Oh, he’s small, you’ll be fine”. At that point the parade started, and this is the kicker, the thing that makes you just want to scream. The dad pulls out a videocamera and begins to video the parade. It wasn’t enough that they showed up 2 minutes before, or that he blocked us and that he was rude, he had to video the parade. That took out another 10% of our field or so, so we ended up seeing the parade, but not very well at all.

    After that, we followed the parade down the street and watched the small ceremony in front of the Sorcerors’ hat. It was almost time for lunch, but we wanted to go to NY street and see if we could find the missing answer from our Fall MA quest. We found it this time when we knew where to look and there were no Osbourne lights. The jury is still out on if we should have found it last November or not. We checked in for lunch and had a good time. Glenn got put in the corner for putting his elbows on the table. I had the wedge salad and the fried chicken. Glenn has another salad and the fried chicken. The fried chicken was very good, but the portions are quite large. This was the only meal when I felt like the Disney Dining Plan really didn’t work. (In particular the Deluxe part of it). We were warm and weren’t really hungry by any means. A counter service salad or small sandwich somewhere probably would have been fine, but because of the plan, we had a full three course meal. It was a bit much. Glenn got the brownie sundae, I had the plain hot fudge sundae and we ate what we could and left the rest.

    This was when we had a decision to make. We’d really done most of what we wanted to do at DHS even though we hadn’t gotten to everything. We had plans for the Spirit of Aloha show that evening, but still had a few hours to spare. Glenn might have enjoyed some of the presentations later in the afternoon, but we were starting to drag a bit and I think Glenn was a touch overheated as well. We basically came up with three choices for ourselves, go back to the hotel and rest/swim, go to Magic Kingdom or go to one of the water parks. We’ve never been to the water parks, but it seemed a bit much with the time we had available. We decided on Magic Kingdom. We took the boat back to Boardwalk, freshened up and drove to the Polynesian. We parked at the Poly and took the monorail into the Magic Kingdom. We knew we had the tour the next day, so we wanted to get to things that we might miss the following day. Our favorite attraction at MK is Philharmagic, so we headed there first. Whew, it was crowded. We ended up waiting in the line area before you get into the lobby. We’ve always had Nathan with us before, so we go off to the right hand side for the wheelchair entrance. This time we were in the general waiting area and they packed us in. It was super tight, hot and uncomfortable. I’m not the least bit claustrophobic, but I felt it that day. And because of the way they loaded (crammed us) in, Glenn and I ended up being one of the last in the theater despite being one of the first ones in the lobby. All in all not a great experience.

    After that, we headed over to the TTC to ride. This is one of my favorites, but we never get to ride together, so it was fun to be able to go together. We still had plenty of time to get to dinner, but it was probably time to start to wrap things up. I wanted to see the new Dumbo and so I suggested we go check it out, take the train and then the boat over to the Poly. Boy, I would not get a gold star for transport that day. The line at the train station was really long. CM’s told us we should get on in 2-3 trains, so 20-30 minutes. I asked that we stay, thinking mostly about my feet. It really took a LONG time to get the train. At some point, we really thought about leaving, but we’d invested enough time that we didn’t want to leave. We finally got the train and headed out for the boats. We waited a while for the boat. I’d forgotten that it stopped at GF first. We ended up going from having plenty of time to just enough. I was also thinking that the boat would put us closer to the Spirit of Aloha show since both were at the “back” of the Poly. I realized once we got there, that that probably wasn’t correct. It was probably a toss up with the monorail. But we made it! Although using our DDP credits seemed to require special handling. Some folks got their tickets at check in and just went in. Glenn had to go stand in another line while I waited. Later (during the dinner/show), they had to bring out the actual check to Glenn. I am not quite sure why “paying” with the DDP was as hard as it was. Once Glenn rejoined me, we debated whether to have our picture taken. We knew we weren’t going to buy it since we’d gotten a couple of nice photos of us on our recent cruise. We finally opted to and wouldn’t you know it. It was a really nice picture of us. We still said “no”, but it was harder to say.

    We ended up sitting on the upper tier about halfway back, slightly off to one side. I know DDP plan folks don’t get the best tier, but for two Deluxe Dining Plan credits, I thought we should have done a little bit better than we did with location. We gave up more than the cost of the first tier in retail value. The food was good. We enjoyed it. Glenn got a “free” beer and I got a glass of the wine that was included. The only issue with the food is that the primary proteins are ribs and chicken, which require cutting, some attention etc, but they served them when the light were down for part of the show. I thought that made it interesting. The show consisted of some preshow stuff, the highlight being the performance of “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” which is a favorite in our family. Once we finished dinner and dessert, Glenn starts to pack up. I told him that I thought there was more show and there was. This was the part that included the dancing, fire dancer etc. It was a lot of fun. We’ve done it; I don’t think we’ll be rushing back anytime soon though.

    We made our way out to the front of the resort, stopping in the gift shop where we found a couple of great gifts for people. We were on a bit of a schedule, because we had to get back to pick up some deliveries of stuff we had shipped to BW before 11. Wouldn’t you know it, I took a wrong turn and so we had to go the loooonnnngg way around to get back to BW. I let Glenn off in front of the hotel and he made it with like 30 seconds to spare. We made it though. We packed up our stuff and hit the hay since we had our early tour the next day.

    Sunday, May 20th

    We were up and out early for our tour. We had packed up the night before and were out the door right on time. We drove to the TTC parked the car and made our way to the monorail. We needed to check in by 8:15 and we had plenty of time. The coffee station at the TTC was just opening when we walked by, but we opted to head straight in. Once we got there, we went through bag check, the special tour line and checked in at the tour gardens. Since part of our tour included lunch, we had to pick our lunch from the Harbour House menu before we left. There was coffee and water out for those waiting for the various tours. Once every one checked in, it was Keys to the Kingdom tour time! Our tour guide was Steve. He was very interesting and super personable. His enthusiasm seemed to flag a bit on the latter part of the tour. I am not sure if he was getting tired (perfectly understandable) or if something else had intruded upon his day. I won’t go into the details for spoiler reasons as much as anything, but a couple of tips on the tour. On our tour, we basically did the “left side” of the park, namely Adventureland, Main Street. Liberty Square etc. It was more than enough to see and the tour was great, but if you always wanted to see behind the scenes at Space Mountain then we didn’t do that on this tour. This tour requires a LOT of walking. They say it in the information on the tour and it is true. The first part of our tour had some rest periods at pretty much the perfect times and we did a couple of rides etc. But the after lunch portion (which was a lot of backstage stuff) really had no seating or rest stops at all. It’s not too much walking, just something to keep in mind. We really enjoyed this tour. One of the ladies on our tour said she had done it a few years before and this one was different enough that she was glad she had done it again. So we might be back at some point.

    After the tour, I was in immediate need of some water and a chair and maybe not in that order. Since we’d had a fairly simple lunch, we decided that an ice cream with the last of our snack credits was in order. We ended up getting ice cream at the Main Street ice cream shop. I don’t know exactly what mine was called but it was a hot fudge and peanut butter sundae and it was super yummy and a great use of a snack credit. We didn’t have a lot more time, so we opted to do Monsters Laugh Factory. We had a great show as always. We did a tour of the Carousel of Progress, always a favorite and it was time to make our way out. We hit a few main street shops on our way out including the sweets show. Where they have a giant Mickey Mouse rice crispy treat. One of our running jokes with my family before we left was that we’d be bringing home a bunch of MM rice crispy treats with our leftover snack credits. We’ve always ended up with extra snack credits on our previous trips. Thanks mostly to drinks, we had used all of ours up on this trip. So while we were in the sweet shop, I bought a MM rice crispie to take home to them. The plain rice crispies are pre-packed, but the castmember said they were made fresh. (My sister commented to me a couple weeks later that is was a really good MM rice crispy treat.) With that all important purchase made, we headed out. We took the monorail back to the TTC and headed to the airport after a quick stop for gas. We ate at the Outback in the terminal and caught our flight back home. We picked up our car with no problem and were home to Nathan in record time.

    Final Thoughts

    I mentioned in the planning that we were doing several new things. For the most part, we were very happy with all of them. The Flying Fish Caf was the real standout. Glenn and I were jokingly discussing how we would classify some of the things that we did. The FF Caf made the “Must do Again” column. The Rose and Crown made the “Like to Do” again list, if we thought we could get Nathan in there. The Spirit of Aloha show made the “Only if someone we are with really wants to do a show” list. It wasn’t all that bad, just merely good and not amazing.

    We enjoyed staying at the Boardwalk Resort. We liked being in the Epcot resort area. It was a great location. We didn’t love the set up of the DVC resort section itself. It was a very LONG walk just to get to an elevator (or conversely to our room). Although being the end unit did have some advantages. We had an extra small window on the corner wall, which when we opened the curtains gave us a great view of the canal going to DHS and the Swan and Dolphin. The self parking can be a real hike as well. The room was clean and nice and we did have a great view of the pool. We seem to go to WDW in the fall a lot, mostly because it’s a good time weather wise and work wise for both of us. Given that it often means the Food and Wine Festival is going on, I doubt we’d even be able to get a room here anytime soon anyway. We’ve had the chance to stay at the Beach Club Villas and I think we prefer that one. The self parking and DVC unit just felt more convenient to us.

    Both tours were great, definitely worth what we paid. If someone I was traveling with wanted to do these tours in the future, I would definitely go with them. I don’t think we’ll do it on our next trip, but we might look up a couple more to do in future.

    We have made our plans and will be heading back for a week in November for MouseAdventure and the Halloween party. I’m thinking Nathan should go dressed as a WDW tourist! Thanks for reading.


  4. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Seattle

    Thanks for a great trip report, Sharon! We were at WDW at the same time, but I don't think our park choices overlapped. We saw The Monkees show too, but on Sunday. We were near the back. It would have been great to be in the front row. It seems like you had a great trip, although, I really can't imagine flying across country to stay for only a few days.
    -Betsy


  5. #4

    Sharon,
    Thanks for taking us along on your wonderful trip. I have been lucky to see the Monkees a few times. And they are always great. I so agree with missing Davy!! As a little girl whenever we played house he was always my husband. LOL
    Thanks again for the fun.
    Ellen


  6. #5
    Registered User Silvercat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Birmingham, UK

    Wow, great trip report, thank you for taking the time to write and post it! We had never seen the Monkees until last year, when they toured the UK and we managed to see a show. It was amazing and I cried a bit - I loved, loved, loved them when I was a young girl! Davy was my favourite (so sad that he is gone) and I too used to daydream that he would one day be mine. Ah well, that never happened, just like David Cassidy was never mine and nor was David Essex. (Just noticed - I seemed to have a thing about 'Davids'!)

    Really interested to read about the Keys to the Kingdom tour - we are planning to do this for the first time on our honeymoon in October, so it was good to read your report and therefore know what to expect.

    Thanks again for taking the time to post!

    Disney hugs.

    Silvercat


  7. #6

    i agree about the spirit of aloha show . it was a waste to me . HOWEVER while in line to get in i had one of the best specialty drinks ever at disney dont remember the name but it was over $11.00 . hummm.. you think i would remember it wouldnt you


  8. #7
    Self-proclaimed Diz nut
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    TinaMouse's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Minnesooooota

    See, I am glad to have this report. Spirit of Aloha is one of those things I've never done and worried that I was missing something.....guess not!

    Working hard for that next WDW trip! December 2013

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